An Ohioan who graduated from West Point, rose to the rank of Colonel, taught at Wilberforce University, and served as the first National Park Superintendent is being honored. The Brigadier General Charles Young Memorial Historical Corridor will stretch from Wilberforce to Ripley, Ohio.
Gov. Mike DeWine signed the bill creating the corridor Monday morning.
“People will be able to see — when they go on Route 42, they go on Route 68 — they’ll be able to see these signs, which will give them an indication that this has a national significance with General Young,” DeWine says. “What we hope is that people will look him up, maybe Google him and just see all the things that he did.”
Young was only the third Black American to graduate from West Point in 1889. He taught at Wilberforce University, and started the marching band program there. Young also served as acting superintendent of Sequoia National Park in California, and served as military attaché to Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Liberia.
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“He served his entire career in a segregated military, yet he rose up. He was a real leader, a commander,” DeWine says. “Just think of all the things that he did. It was quite an amazing accomplishment.”
He was promoted posthumously to brigadier general in 2021, some 99 years after his death. Young is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
The Ohio corridor stretches between Ripley, Ohio, where Young grew up, and Wilberforce University. In Kentucky, after crossing the Simon Kenton Bridge, the corridor reaches another 85 miles to Nicholasville. It ends at the Camp Nelson Monument.
Camp Nelson was a supply depot, hospital and Union Army base during the American Civil War. After escaping slavery, Young’s father, Gabriel, joined the 5th Regiment, U.S. Colored Heavy Artillery, and moved the family across the Ohio River to Ripley.
